Pirate Enforcement Continues in Miami

Hurricane season has not slowed down the Enforcement Bureau in Miami when it comes to tracking down alleged unlicensed pirate operators — even when it comes to those who seem to be repeat offenders.

Agents from the Miami field office of the Federal Communications Commission are continuing to call out unlicensed radio operators in the city of Lake Worth, Fla., by sending cease and desist notices to individuals at two separate locations across this city of 37,000 on Florida’s east coast.

On two dates in August 2017, agents used direction-finding techniques to determine that radio signals on frequency 93.7 MHz were emanating from a residential property owned on Mil Lake Circle by Rocheney Charles and Judith Oreste.

These will be familiar names to those who scan the pirate reports, as this is not the first time that this duo of alleged pirate operators has been contacted by the FCC. A year ago, Charles and Oreste were notified that they were reports of an unlicensed broadcast station operating on slightly different frequency — that time, on 95.3 MHz. It was not clear what action the FCC took when it came to this 2016 notice.

Across town, property owner Eglon Garvey was also handed a notice of unlicensed operation after agents determined that radio signals on frequency 88.7 MHz were emanating from a residential property on South E Street that Garvey owned.

In both cases, the alleged unlicensed operators were given 10 days to respond to the FCC’s inquiry or face a series of penalties.